theturtlesage

Join Date 07/2010

A few beginner questions

I have a few questions about specific Technologies and Planetary Improvements

Hello, I have been playing GalCiv for a few months now and I've recently started taking up Modding and Coding as a hobby.

I have a few questions for the other Modders out there, hoping that somebody might be able to help me.

first of all, there are a few planetary improvements and research/technologies that grant abilities... For instance, Universal Translator lets you speak to other civilizations, and a Starport lets you build ships.

My major question is, if i was to completely build my own tech tree and list of planetary improvements from scratch, how would i be able to grant these abilities (and others) to the player after they complete research or a planetary improvement?

I can't seem to figure out how these special technologies and planetary improvements work based solely on the built-in editors, or by opening the xml files with notepad.

Thanks in advance to anybody who spends their time to help a rookie modder

Edit: Also for when I edit improvements... what do the following abilities do: Ship Quality, Percieved Might, Defense, Resistance?

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The abilities of starports are also probably hard coded. Unlike techs, you cannot make one by a different name, and any cosmetic changes will be shared by all races.

For your final question, Ship Quality is a bonus to the weapons and defenses of ships built on the planet, Percieved Might increases makes ships in orbit around the planet appear more powerful to the AI (used by the spin control center), PlanetaryDefenseBonus inceases the weapons and defenses of ships in orbit, and Resistance increases the time it takes for a planet to flip culturally (note that negative Resistance is broken, and positive Resistance only makes a difference as high values).

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Quoting TOV,

reply 1

I think the abilities of techs like Universal Translators in hard coded, so you cannot create a tech from scratch that has these abilities. However, you can use the tech by a different name in the tech tree, as the internal name (used by the code) is separate from the display name.

The abilities of starports are also probably hard coded. Unlike techs, you cannot make one by a different name, and any cosmetic changes will be shared by all races.

For your final question, Ship Quality is a bonus to the weapons and defenses of ships built on the planet, Percieved Might increases makes ships in orbit around the planet appear more powerful to the AI (used by the spin control center), PlanetaryDefenseBonus inceases the weapons and defenses of ships in orbit, and Resistance increases the time it takes for a planet to flip culturally (note that negative Resistance is broken, and positive Resistance only makes a difference as high values).

Edit: I forgot to say thanks for your feedback... so Thanks

Alright, so I have a few more questions then based on this feedback.

So, if the only way to put an ability (like Alliances) into my tech tree, would be to open another tech tree with the desired tech, and then delete every tech except these special ability techs? What happens if I make a tech tree without the universal translator tech... Will I be able to communicate with other races from the start, or will I permanetly be unable to communicate with other aliens?

Another other thing that I don't know, about planetary improvements, is... what does the Flag "Updates ship types" and "updates minimap" do?

And lastly... for technology you can add civ ability bonuses to the entire civ, but there are a few of them that i don't know what they do, is there a list somewhere or could you name off a few of the special cases? For instance, what does the "Cabinet" ability do? or perhaps what does crime do?

Can there be extra levels of an Extremem colinization Tech? If so, how does that work in-game?

Can a single Technology be made to have multiple technology requirements? What about planetary improvements and ship componets?

There are also probably a ton of other things that I don't know, that I'm having difficulty finding answers to anywhere else... If it would be easier for someone to give me a link to a answer a specific question go ahead and do that, if it's reliable information. I'd really like to know more about ship components, like what does size the Size Mod Effect on ship components?

Like I said above, there's countless things that I don't know that aren't found in tutorials (or I just missed them when i gave them a read)

Edit: O... and I'd really like to know more about logistics and the logistics ability. Like... is there a way for me to edit the tiny, small, medium, etc... to have different logistical values than they already have? And what about changing a race's starting logistics?

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Something like that, yes. You could rename the Alliances tech, or alter its cost, but you'd have to use it.

I'm fairly positive if you have a tree without UT you cannot speak to aliens, period. It's possible you might be able to speak to Team members (set before game start) without it, but I'd doubt even Ally.

Cabinet and Crime don't do anything; they were never finished.

Extreme Colonization only has three supported values: 0%, 50%, and 100%.

You can have a tech, ship, component, or improvement require multiple techs to unlock, but it's unsupported. It makes the tech tree look messy, and it's not supposed to work. I haven't tried everything possible with regards to that, though. But in my testing (as of DA 1.8) I had a ship component require two separate techs and I had to research both of them to unlock it, even though the tech tree didn't tell me that exactly.

You can change a race's starting logistics by editing the customracexml via Notepad or similar; Logistics is an ability value down near the bottom.

Hulls are technically ship components, which means y ou can change the logistics that a hull size uses in the ship components xml in the data folder for the expansion in question; I don't remember what it's named, exactly, but it should have components in its name.

Finally, to correct the information you've already been given, ShipQuality increases the attack of a ship built on the planet, but not the defense, and PlanetaryDefenseBonus is a modification to the invasion equation for that planet (or at least, is supposed to be).

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I have a couple other serious questions... What about the Tech "Technological Victory"... just general information and what happens if i delete it or rename it?

What about the planetary improvement Quality techs (soil enhancements...terraforming and such) is it possible to add more planetary increasing tiles, by creating a new planetary structure and a technology to unlock it? Are there other ways to increase the number of buildable tiles on a planet?

Also... does anybody know the absolute maximum allowed planetary quality w/o breaking the game... I already know that planetary quality means the number of usable tiles... and the initial colony/capital take up one space. (If planetary quality can be increased to some absurd number, like 100... does that allow 100 tiles or would it cap the number of tiles at some point?)

If i start adding large amounts of +planet quality to the empire as a whole (like 5000%), in an effort to turn those 4-6 level quality planets, would the high level 26+ planets be raised above the limit and crash the game?

What is the max population... assuming there was no limit to how much morale and food you could give a particular planet?

What i'm trying to do with my mod is basically to create a new tech tree, improvements, and ship components... that will create a seemingly endless progression in the empire and technology. So instead of ending the defense and weapons technology at whatever number it currently is, i will make 100+ (or close to it) levels or more of each technology so that the player never reaches the maximum tech in any given game (because they start to become so absurdly expensive the player doesn't have enough time before victory/defeat) ...... The same goes for improvements (there will be an improvement associated with almost every tech, so while the starting factories might give 4 industry, the factories eventually start giving 100, 500, and 1000 industry and some point)

The reason for this is that I quickly research the highest levels of factories and labs/econ buildings even sometimes before the expansion phase is over... and i feel that technology shouldn't be nearing the max untill the game is practically over.

Final Question for this post:

If i make an extremely long tech tree and upgradable improvements to really absurdly high levels, how well would the AI adapt to this new set of conditions? After all... the game is single player, so there's no reason to be making all of this if the AI does a terrible job giving me a challenge.

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I feel like i rambled a lot in the last post so i'll make a clear description of what i'm trying to accomplish in my Mod.

1st of all, i'm not changing any major graphics or bothering to change things like how much base income i get from population (because that requires too much effort for me... )

What i'm trying to do is make an endless, but at the same time fully balanced, gameplay experience.

I don't like how technologies suddenly end the way the do with the default race tech trees (and some of the races are well.... too strong or too weak because of their technology) So i'm creating 10 custom races (one for me and 9 for the AI's) and having them all use the same Tech tree and improvements. The only difference i might make between the races are the initial alignment and military aggressivness.

So while the original game stoped the industry tech tree at industrial sectors and quantum power plants (from what i remember), I'll make it go further (for industry i'll probably add 25 or more levels, for other techs i haven't decided)

All this is to add more strategy, and less "story" (sorry but i'm a pure strategy/difficulty guy... i don't really care that there are multiple races in the game) I really feel that GalCiv is a nice game engine and has nice features but the actual gameplay hasn't really had much balancing (in all of my tough or higher games for instance, it seems like only 2 or 3 of the same races always put up the most challenge throughout the game.)

I think I'm more of a Chess type player, and i hate "randomness" to some degree (some randomness is good, like for the ship combat..) I'll probably end up creating my own galaxies with perfectly mirrored starting positions on top of my other mods...

As i said in my previous post, i'm looking for maximum challenge and variety, but with good game balance.

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Finally, to correct the information you've already been given, ShipQuality increases the attack of a ship built on the planet, but not the defense, and PlanetaryDefenseBonus is a modification to the invasion equation for that planet (or at least, is supposed to be).

I admit might be wrong about what ShipQuality, but I know for an absolute and undeniable fact that PlanetaryDefenseBonus does exactly what I said it does. (At least for attack. I suddenly can't remember if it also increases defense). I've observed it's effects with my own eyes. It is a common misconception, though, as it sounds like the Planetary Defense improvement, which does, or is supposed to do, what you said.

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@TOV: Then we have two entities within the game that are using a different bonus and naming it the same thing. My apologies.

@theturtlesage:
-Maximum tiles per planet is 72. While class may be able to go above this, that's all the space you'll get.
-Maximum population per planet is 100 billion.
-I suspect the same thing holds true for technology victory as does for UT/alliances/etc.
-I don't know that you can add new levels of terraforming, but I would be surprised.
-In TA, there are two buildings that add useable tiles-the Weather Control Zenith and Biosphere Modulator. I believe that ability was added with TA, though-I'm not sure how one would accomplish it in DA, unless you used PQ in some roundabout way.

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Quoting Sole Soul,

reply 7

@TOV: Then we have two entities within the game that are using a different bonus and naming it the same thing. My apologies.

@theturtlesage:
-Maximum tiles per planet is 72. While class may be able to go above this, that's all the space you'll get.
-Maximum population per planet is 100 billion.
-I suspect the same thing holds true for technology victory as does for UT/alliances/etc.
-I don't know that you can add new levels of terraforming, but I would be surprised.
-In TA, there are two buildings that add useable tiles-the Weather Control Zenith and Biosphere Modulator. I believe that ability was added with TA, though-I'm not sure how one would accomplish it in DA, unless you used PQ in some roundabout way.

Thanks, very helpfull.

P.S. why is max pop capped at 100 bil.... seems kind of dumb to have a cap, because then adding more morale and food wont help in any way. (I'm making a huge tech tree and there will be almost limitlessly researchable morale+ and morale+ buildings [Althrough they will start to get really expensive])

Edit: Holy crap, I almost forgot to ask about Xeno Ethics and the Ethical Research branch.

Can any parts of Xeno Ethics be edited? I'm talking about things other than the obvious which would be to have techs with an ethical alignment as a requirment. Can I change what initial advantages choosing evil/neutral/good you get by researching xeno ethics, other than changing what you can research afterwards.

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What does the Size Mod do for ship components?

Where do i edit/change or make new starbase modules?

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Like other techs, the effects of Xeno Ethics, and the advantages given by the different alignments, is hard coded, but you can rename it or change other things, like any other techs. You just need to have to keep the internal name the same. The other ethics techs are normal techs, and many of the improvements are normal improvements. Some notes on them:

Secret Police Center is a normal morale improvement.

Artificial Slave Center is probably hard coded.

Mind Control Center, doesn't do what it says it does, last I checked.

No Mercy Invasion Center is hard coded

Propaganda Center may not work, but if it does, it is hard coded

Empathic Tactical Center is a normal improvement

Hall of Empathy may not work, but if it does, it is hard coded.

The temples are normal improvements, they just use tags which are only found in these improvements.

I think size mod allows for components to scale with hull size, but I'm not familiar with it, so I'll let someone else explain it.

Starbase modules can be edited in the StarbaseModules.xml

Have you read the guide by CariElf? Parts of it are outdated, but most of it is still usable. You can find it here: https://www.galciv2.com/mods/gc2modsdoc.htm

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Size mod works like this: Let's take a hypothetical component with 10 size and 20 sizemod and place it on a hypothetical size 50 hull.

10+50*0.2=10+10=20 size.

On a tiny hull (16): 10+16*0.2=10+3.2=13.

I believe the Propaganda Center is actually a normal improvement, albeit at 1 per planet, but I haven't looked at it in a very long time. Aside from that, and aside from the MCC doing something else in TA (that is, its original intended purpose, which is -also- hardcoded, to my knowledge), TOV's information is correct.

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Has the MCC been fixed? I had heard that the MCC's econ bonus was broken in Twilight (unless you fixed it yourself), but this is the first time I heard about it actually working as intended.

Propaganda Center is a normal improvement, not 1/planet. Also, I looked at the improvement in more detail, and it's not hard coded, either, much to my surprise. It used the resistance tag.

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The MCC has been fixed to its intended purpose in Twilight, yes. Which means the econ bonus, which was never intended, is broken, but only in Twilight.

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That's amazing news! How could I have missed that?

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Quoting Sole Soul,

reply 11

Size mod works like this: Let's take a hypothetical component with 10 size and 20 sizemod and place it on a hypothetical size 50 hull.

10+50*0.2=10+10=20 size.

On a tiny hull (16): 10+16*0.2=10+3.2=13.

I believe the Propaganda Center is actually a normal improvement, albeit at 1 per planet, but I haven't looked at it in a very long time. Aside from that, and aside from the MCC doing something else in TA (that is, its original intended purpose, which is -also- hardcoded, to my knowledge), TOV's information is correct.

What I put the Size Mod as 0, or lower than the Base Size?

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If the size mod is zero, then the component is the same size for all hulls. The size mod is a percentage, as far as I understand it, so it is not related directly to the base size.

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